Tag: speaking

I don’t think I’ve ever said anything worth listening to. This thought struck me today, keenly. And it bugs the shit out of me. I’m angry about this reality.

And my mind is not so kind as to stop with this one thought. It keeps asking, What do I have to do to say something worth hearing? Could I ever say something that isn’t just an echo of something already said, better than I could say it? If I am not worth listening to, what does that say about my overall self-worth? Can I change? Do I want to, badly enough?

If I am not worth listening to, it must be my fault, right? Somewhere along the way, I failed to figure out the right platform. Or I failed to stop caring so much what people think that I could actually focus for a decent chunk of time on something other than my problems and flaws. I failed to follow up on my dreams and say arse barns to the naysayers, and now I am paying for it.

Yet here I am, still writing in the face of my own inadequacy. That’s part of why I write in the first place—to shut my mouth up, to shrink from the unscripted. I feel like a coward, like I must be retarded in some way to be incapable of saying the right thing loud enough to be heard.

The world is not kind to those who feel, to the ones who take its weight on their own shoulders. There is no publisher, no organization, no business, no government, no club that truly wants you to be here. To be, as you are, and to be in this present moment, no strings, no conditions. They want the shell of you: your money, your time, your endorsement, your skills, your testimony. You’re absurdly replaceable as a statistic.

But you have a family, don’t you? Where are your children? Who is your neighbour? Is there at least one person in your life to whom you mean everything? Then, as you, you are enough.

I need to know this. I don’t always believe it. Most of my people have come and gone and I’ve let them, believing I have no right to ask them to stay, believing it is all my fault. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. But I do know without some kind of community, some kind of context, we are all just disembodied voices on the wind, echoless.

I don’t know what (or if, or when) you think of me. I might not care anymore.